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Meta's new terms and the news: what changed in v1.3.0
From v1.2.0 (2026-10-27, 4cb930e25) to v1.3.0 (2026-10-27, db67c5ce1), paragraph by paragraph.
0 paragraphs added, 0 removed, 8 changed in place, 63 unchanged. About 0 words added and 411 removed. Insertions are marked like this, deletions like this; unchanged runs are folded to one line; figures appear as their file names.
← v1.2.0 · all versions · v1.4.0 →
2 unchanged paragraphs
!shot mt-post.webp | images/ | Tami Hoffman, Director of Public Policy at The Guardian, onHoffman's LinkedIn onpost of 27 October 2026:2026, "This ⬇️ is filling up my inbox. Meta's decision to update its 'commercial terms of use' has got news organisations aroundwith the world riled. 90 seconds of your time and I will explain why." The video opensopening on the clause: "You authorise us (or any entity acting on our behalf) to use automated software (such as web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers and user agents) and create test credentials to access, index, cache, analyse, collect, retrieve or crawl the domains, web pages or URLs (and any content available through them) that are associated with your products or services, or that are made available through your or users' use of Meta Company Products and services, and to periodically pull updates from such domains, web pages or URLs in order to provide, develop, improve, research and maintain advertising and business products."clause. | medium | aside
10 unchanged paragraphs, under In short {#in-short}, What Tami Hoffman is pointing at {#post}
Tami Hoffman, Director of Public Policy at The Guardian, postedposted on LinkedInLinkedIn on 27 October: "This ⬇️ is filling up my inbox. Meta's decision to update its 'commercial terms of use' has got news organisations around the world riled. 90 seconds of your time and I will explain why." The video puts the clause on screen, word by word, and shows Meta's page with the clause highlighted inside the section where a business grants Meta its licences. It is a good way to see it, because the clause is one paragraph among many that businesses accept, often without reading.
!shot mt-terms.webp | images/ | Meta's Commercial Terms page as shown in Tami Hoffman's video:video, with the banner,crawling "We'reclause updating the Meta Commercial Terms. These updates will come into effect on 20 November 2026", the opening of the terms, section 1, "Licences and rights you provide Meta", and the highlighted paragraph that ends "and maintain the integrity and security of Meta Company Products".highlighted. | screenshot
1 unchanged paragraph, under The clause, part by part {#clause}
!shot mt-anatomy.webp | images/ | The clause, part by part: who (Meta or any entity acting on its behalf),who, with what (crawlers and test credentials),what, to do whatwhat, (access, index, cache, analyse, collect, retrieve or crawl), where (sites associated with a business, or made available through its or its users' use of Meta's products),where, how often (periodically),often, for what (advertisingwhat, and business products, with "train" removed), what is not in it (robots.txt, an opt-out, an exclusion for news, payment, a limit on AI use), and the price of saying no.it. | chart
10 unchanged paragraphs, under Since mid-October {#timeline}
!shot mt-timeline.webp | images/ | Meta's Commercial Terms, October to November 2026: thea updatetimeline with "train", effective 30 October;of the News/Media Alliance's "outrageous and probably illegal" on 16 October; Meta removing "train" on 16 and 17 October;update, the News Media Association's "shameless landgrab" on 19 October; an open letter, complaints for interim measures and WAN-IFRA's five demands on 22 October; Meta's move to 20 November and "a pause not a solution" on 23 October;reactions and the terms in force on 20 November.changes. | chart
14 unchanged paragraphs, under What publishers are asking for {#asks}, My view: do not only write letters {#view}
!shot mt-demands.webp | images/ | WAN-IFRA'sThe five demands in WAN-IFRA's letter, and what a publisher can do now:about a written exclusion for news, which only Meta can give; paywalls and access rules honoured, which a publisher can state in its own terms and enforce at the edge; binding machine-readable reservations, which RSL 1.0 provides today; no AI use without a licence, which a price per crawl provides today; and declining without losing the tools, which needs channels the publisher owns.each. | chart
8 unchanged paragraphs, under How a crawler can behave {#crawler}
!shot mt-crawler.webp | images/ | How a crawler can behave, from the PHP story site's source watch:watch, publicwith sources only; each site's terms and robots.txt followed;its three licence tiers, set per publisher, A keep and show (74 publishers), B at most 25 words and a link (933), C link only (16), in the source watch's export of 27 October; captures private, hashes public; and an opt-out for any publisher who asks.tiers. | chart
18 unchanged paragraphs, under What to watch before 20 November {#watch}, What this does not claim {#limits}, Reviewed, and corrected {#review}…
Tami Hoffman's LinkedInLinkedIn post and videovideo of 27 October 2026, as screenshots shared with me the same day. Meta's Commercial Terms and the update page, read on 27 October 2026. Press Gazette, New Facebook terms for publishers "shameless land grab", 19 October 2026, updated 21 October; Engadget, Meta tweaks its new terms of service after backlash against scraping; Unite.ai, Meta delays commercial terms update as publishers demand withdrawal; InPublishing, World's news publishers call on Meta to halt scraping clause, 23 October 2026, for WAN-IFRA's letter and its addendum; PPC Land, Meta delays website crawling terms to Nov 20, for the News Media Association's response to the delay; Nieman Lab, Meta delays rollout of terms, as reported by others for the Commission's statement. RSL 1.0; Cloudflare, Introducing pay per crawl, 1 July 2025. Related: the evidence behind four days, who creates the original?, sources and their shadows, one researcher for every newsroom. Written up and checked by this site's agent, newsroom.writer; the editorial responsibility is mine.